Unbroken (The Protectors 12)

“Because I knew what it would do to you,” I answered as I dropped my eyes to his lap. His fingers were lax, but I knew that didn’t mean anything.

“What will it do to me?”

“Even though you’re safe, you won’t be able to stop thinking about what it would have been like… to have to start over with someone new… to think about that fear of needing to learn how to please someone new, to obey them so they wouldn’t hurt you. You’ll think about how close you came to never seeing your brother or family ever again.”

“That’s not all,” Aleks whispered. “Is it?”

I shook my head.

“Is he… do you think he’s the one who sent those men after me?”

When I didn’t answer him, I felt his fingers stroke over the back of my head.

“I’ll keep you safe, Aleks. That’s all that matters.”

I knew Aleks was no longer talking to me when he asked, “So you wanted to use me as bait?”

I willed Luca not to answer.

He didn’t.

But whatever Aleks saw on his face was answer enough because he pulled his fingers from my hair and asked, “Can I please go to my room now?”

I wanted to tell him we needed to go, but I knew he wasn’t in any shape to do anything but escape. I was half-tempted to ask him if he wanted to call his brother, but I was afraid of his answer so I merely nodded. He got up, making sure to get off his chair on the opposite side so he wouldn’t touch me even by accident. I stood with my gun in hand to make sure Luca didn’t try to make a grab for him. Despite my brother not being armed, he had the skills to hold Aleks in such a way that I’d have no choice but to put down my weapon.

I watched Aleks go to the stairs and head up them. There was no way for him to escape from the second floor so my biggest concern was keeping an eye on Luca and Con so neither tried to take him from me while the other distracted or disabled me.

The reality was that if they really wanted to, it wouldn’t take much for them to incapacitate me. The only thing protecting me was my gun, and the idea of shooting either man, despite my need to protect Aleks, left a dead weight in my belly.

“Vaughn, sit,” Con said. “I’ve got some steaks in the freezer that I can defrost. There aren’t any eggs but I can fry up some canned potatoes—”

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

Con sighed and Luca shook his head.

“We were so fucking close,” my brother finally whispered, his voice full of bitterness.

I knew what he was talking about, of course. “What was I supposed to do, Luca? Let them all die? The meeting had already been fucking canceled!”

“And why didn’t you know about that?” Luca shot back. “That kid’s brother—”

“His name is Aleks and he’s not a kid!” I bit out.

“That fucking brother of his told him of his little escape plan hours before it actually happened! If you’d been there, you could have found a way to stop it… to make sure the meeting still happened.”

I laughed harshly. “God, you give me way too much credit, little brother.” I leaned back in my chair. “I was still just the goddamned hired help, Luca! Even if I’d known Dante and Magnus would show up, how would it have looked to Marcus if I’d suggested he keep that meeting? That’s why I went in eight years ago and you didn’t,” I said as I pointed at him. “You have all the finesse of a bull in a china shop when you decide you want something. They would have made you on day one!”

Luca leaned forward across the table, his eyes glittering with anger. “Then explain to me how a kid, who was and still is our best hope of finding my son, is alive and well two years after he was supposedly killed during a scuffle inside the Parks mansion before it blew up? Explain to me what fucking hold he has on you that you would choose him over the child you loved like your own son!”

Con put his hand on Luca’s arm to draw him back into a sitting position, since he was practically in my face by the end of his rant.

“You want to know why, Luca?” I asked. “Because I just couldn’t do it anymore,” I said. “I couldn’t leave one more victim behind, even for a day, a minute. You all say I was the best equipped to go in after Gio, but not one of you knows what it’s really like in there.” I shifted my eyes to Con briefly, then pinned Luca with the harshness of my gaze. “I’m the one who listened to their screams every day as they were being violated. I’m the one who had to look in their terrified or dead eyes day after day as they tried to find a reason to take their next breath. I had to listen to them cry every night for their mom or their dad or whoever was out there in the world looking for them. You got them out after I told you about them, Luca. That’s fucking fantastic. But I never got to see any of that because I was on to the next monster trying to find Gio. Every day for eight fucking years I’ve watched kids suffer and I blocked it off so I could remember that Gio was the one waiting, the one who needed saving.”